


Achilles Academy and the Panhellenic Games

by HopeLions13



Series: Achilles Academy [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Ancient Greek Culture, Angst, Angsty demigod family, Because honestly, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kronos's army, Luke may be right, Worldbuilding, but they're only getting it the long way around, makes no sense in canon, percy is young and confused by love, these characters all deserve happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24156820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeLions13/pseuds/HopeLions13
Summary: Percy is back for his second year at AA, but with Luke off leading a rebellion against the gods, school just isn't the same. Then Chiron announces they're to host a panhellenic game. As Amazons, the Hunters of Artemis, and Kronos's army descend upon his school, Percy has to face the consequences of his split loyalties. But surely, he can handle the demigod Olympics. Right?
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan & Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson
Series: Achilles Academy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743292
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21





	1. An Ivy League Murders a Pinata

**Author's Note:**

> So, hey. I truly hope everyone is safe and well. A guest asked me today if I would write a sequel, and I said, "You know what, why not?" I'm taking intensive Greek and Latin this summer, trying to prepare myself for a Classics MA, and so it's not like I can fall any deeper into the hole. Maybe we can even consider this studying. I'm not sure how frequent updates will be, it is going to depend on my mood, probably, but let's just have some fun, right?

#  Chapter 1- An Ivy League Murders A Pinata

I’m waiting. Whoever thought sending me a yale for my birthday would be funny, fess up. Because let me tell you—it was not funny. It wouldn’t even have been funny if you sent me _to_ Yale, but sending me _a_ yale—not funny at all.

_Alright, alright, I’ll do the thing, calm down!_

My name is Percy Jackson. As of today, I’m thirteen years old. My dad is the god Poseidon, and my best friend is also my bitterest enemy. If any of this is sounding strange to you, you should probably just stop reading. It only gets worse from here.

_There, I did it. Now onto the story._

I was fairly certain I was going to die, but that was nothing new. As my feet pounded against the cement, I let out a string of curses, and weaved into a back alley. The yale chasing me had long horns which stuck out to the side, so I was hoping that if I found an ally small enough, it wouldn’t be able to follow me. Unfortunately, the city has been cracking down on just that type of alley in their war against drugs, leaving me nowhere to hide. If I died, I was definitely suing the city.

The path in front of me came to a dead-end, and towering apartments rose to either side. In front of me, there was a tall wire fence, and behind me, a lumbering brown yak with horns longer than my body. Since I was more Aquaman than Spiderman, and I didn’t feel like becoming a Percy-kabob, I decided to take my luck with the fence. It was lower than the climbing wall at school, and no lava, so I figured I could manage.

I should have just capped Riptide and put her in my pocket, but it’s against my personal code to ever do the logical thing. Instead I tossed the sword on the other side, and began to climb, squeezing the toes of my sneakers between rungs, gripping tight to the steaming metal. It was hot out, and sweat poured down my face.

All week I’d been wondering if my water powers worked on sweat, but I hadn’t tested it out. Maybe now I’d get my chance.

The yale rammed itself into the fence, its horns just missing me. _Thank the gods!_ I thought, continuing to climb. But, of course, I jinxed myself. The yale’s horn had missed me, true, but it had gotten stuck between two rungs of the fence. As it tried to pull free, the whole fence shattered and shook. I flew off of it, landing with a hard thud on the ground. The fence fell with me, the yale’s horns still stuck within it. The monster thrashed about, throwing the fence like it was a bucking bronco.

I hissed in pain as the rusty metal scraped at my skin, but managed to jump out of the way. Just then, the yale tossed its head. The fence broke in half around its horn, pieces flying everywhere. A large chunk of metal hit me in the gut, winding me. I couldn’t breathe, never mind move, but I didn’t have much choice. The yale was angry, howling. For some reason, though it looked like a cross between a bull and an antelope, when it howled it sounded decidedly like a very annoyed tabby cat. It sent chills up my spine, especially as it charged the broken fence in retribution.

Then, before I could even catch my breath, it remembered its real target. I might as well have worn a fancy Spanish suit and waved a red flag.

I took off running the moment it charged. As I hoped over the broken fence, I felt Riptide reappear in my pocket. I didn’t take the time to uncap her though, because the yale’s horns were ginormous, and I’d get skewered long before I got a hit in. Instead, I did what all smart demigods do when faced with monsters.

I ran.

In NYC, you don’t really get a backyard, but there were backstreets which people used as their own. As I ran from the yale, I found myself passing straight through what appeared to be a Mexican birthday party. A cute little girl in a fancy dress she swung at a pinata while her tíos y tías chattered in Spanish.

Enter me. I plowed straight through the party, yale right behind me, causing them all to scream. I don’t know what they saw through the mist, maybe a giant cow because the girl shouted ‘Vaca!”

I didn’t really have time to remember what I’d learned in 5th grade Spanish, because suddenly I had to worry about the yale killing them as well. Normally monsters wouldn’t hurt mortals if there was a demigod around to eat, but this little girl and I were birthday twins, so I didn’t want to take any chances with her life.

I drew Riptide and fell into a fighting stance. The family screamed, no doubt seeing a gun or something, but I didn’t worry about them. I didn’t have time to worry about them; the yale was charging at me, horns spiny like a drill. As I watched it charge, I knew I was dead. There was no way I was going to be able to stab it before it stabbed me; it’s horns were twice as long as Riptide. My only change would be to jump to the side last minute and I hope I could skewer it before it skewered me.

A flash of color flew over my head and smacked the yale in the face. It was the pinata, and the yale quickly turned to its newest enemy. It let out a bleating _meow_ , then stabbed the limp pinata. Candy bled out of it, but the yale wasn’t satisfied. It stabbed the poor pinata again, then spun its horn.

Friendly advice, don’t put pinatas in a blender. That’s basically what the yale did, and it wasn’t pretty. I never knew it was possible to have nightmares about pinatas, but as I watched the yale mutilate snickers bars, I doubted I’d ever sleep again.

Then I realized I would be sleeping in Hades if I didn’t take advantage of the yale’s distraction. Without further hesitation, I charged the beast, hacking off its head with one quick stroke. The monster burst into dust, but one of the horns remained, the entrails of the pinata hanging off it.

I don’t know why I found it so disgusting, but I did. I turned away so I didn’t vomit, and found myself staring face-to-face with a little girl holding a baseball bat. Only then did I realize that in order for the pinata to go flying like that, someone must have hit it. Considering the rest of the party-goers were cowering, it was clear who’d helped me. This little girl, five years old according to the candles on her cake, had saved my life with a pinata.

When the girl saw me looking, she beamed brightly, then exclaimed, “Hooray! A pinata!”

I blushed. I didn’t quite know what to say to that, not that I got the chance. The girl’s mother came running from behind the table, scooping up her daughter and looking horrified at me. Sighing internally, I prepared to run for it before they called the cops, but then I heard the woman whisper, “Hermes?”

It was like a baseball bat to the gut, like I was the pinata. I turned to look at her, really look at her, and realized she wasn’t looking through my sword the way mortals usually did. She was looking right at it, the little girl as well. My heart dropped. I studied the girl’s face, and sure enough, I could see Luke—I mean Hermes—in her features. All the children of Hermes had that same mischievous glint, and it would explain how she’d managed to hit the pinata straight into the ram. I remembered from my own childhood the strange things half-bloods could do when threatened. This was nothing.

The woman was still staring at me. _Stop getting distracted Percy!_ I opened my mouth, though I had nothing to say. I didn’t exactly look like Hermes, not that a god couldn’t look like me if they tried. But still. I doubted Hermes had fathered a child with this woman looking like a thirteen-year-old with acne. I had to remind her of Hermes in another way.

Probably with my talent for getting in _way_ over my head.

“Uh… no,” I answered, which was about as good a response as anyone would come up with in my situation. “I know him though… I mean. Sort of. We’ve met a few times. I know his…”

I trailed off completely there. I’d been doing really well all summer in my quest to forget all about Luke. It had almost gotten easier too. But now my progress had been demolished like the pinata. This little girl didn’t _really_ resemble Luke. She was Latina; Luke was pale as ice. Plus, this girl was five years old and chubby cheeked; there was nothing about Luke which resembled innocence what-so-ever. But the glint in their eyes was the same, so Luke had to be her brother. Her big brother.

I pitied her immediately. I knew what it was like to have Luke as a big brother, and it wasn’t pretty.

“But you are like her?” the woman finally whispered, accent thick, but words sure. “You are _un mestizo_?”

Now that one got me. I distinctly remembered one of my history teachers hitting me over the head with a hammer in a desperate attempt to teach me the difference between a mestizo and a mulatto in colonial Latin America. It hadn’t worked, because I still couldn’t remember it, but that had been in 5th grade, before I came to Achilles Academy. Somehow I doubted my teacher was saying there were a bunch of half-bloods running around the Spanish colonies.

Then it occurred to me that maybe other cultures had different words for things, words that didn’t necessarily translate directly. Her meaning was clear enough after all. Hermes must have told her what to expect when she realized she was pregnant. Not a surprise. I’d known for a while that he was one of the gods who actually tried to be a half-descent parent.

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted with a shrug. The little girl had her eyebrows all scrunched up as she looked between me and her mom. It was kind of cute, though I worried she was about to throw a fit. Didn’t kids normally do that?

Her mother didn’t say anything else immediately. I realized after a moment of us all just standing there that she didn’t have anything else to say at all my the looks of it. Awkwardly rubbing my neck, I backed up.. The mutilated candy, already melting in the heat, smooshed beneath my sneakers, the chocolate staining them a putrid shade of brown.

The yale’s horn twisted horn was still just lying there, and I picked it up, slinging it over my shoulder. Then I turned to leave, only pausing for a moment to say, “Nice job with that baseball bat. When you get to AA, you should definitely join the softball team. Happy birthday!”

The daughter of Hermes gave me a look of disapproval that was frighteningly familiar, and I took off towards home. I’d need to find someone to stash my little trophy; my mom hated it when I brought monster parts into the house.

ΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέας

I ended up tossing the horn into the dumpster outside my apartment; it wasn’t like I actually wanted the thing. Then I went inside, hoping to wipe away the grime before my mom got home from work. I’d made the mistake back in July of mentioning to her the _kerastis_ which had attacked me by the basketball courts, and she’d almost had a heart attack. It didn’t matter to her that these mythological snakes were hardly the size of my shoe, they had horns, and so they were monsters. Μοm didn’t like it when I got attacked by monsters, which was understandable, but since it wasn’t _really_ something I could prevent, I’d taken the easier path of just not telling my mom when things happened. I was fine; I knew how to fight. There was no need to worry her.

Unfortunately, my mom must have come home early for my birthday, because I could hear her in our apartment. I did my best to scrub the dirt and chocolate off the bottom of my shoes. When that didn’t work, I just took them off, brushed the monster dust off my shirt, and tried to act cool.

“Surprise!”

I’ll admit it—I jumped. I’d come to expect the unexpected, but somehow the idea of my mom throwing me a surprise birthday party hadn’t even crossed my mind. Since most of my friends from school lived in different states, I’d told her I didn’t need any sort of party. Because she was awesome, she hadn’t listened. 

When I looked around, though, I realized it wasn’t really a party. The only ones there besides my mom were Celia, Bianca, and Nico. I was strangely disappointed that Annabeth hadn’t come, but pushed that away. Then I realized that, with Luke gone, I really didn’t have any male friends, and decided to work on that once I got back to school. Because Nico was ten, and didn’t count.

Speaking of Nico… the scrawny kid came running up to me, smile bright across his face as he said, “Happy birthday Percy.”

“Uh, you too,” I dumbly answered. Then I promptly smacked myself. _Really Percy? Nice going._ Whatever, wasn’t my fault. I was *surprised* after all.

“Happy birthday Percy,” my mom echoed, pulling me into a bright hug. I blushed slightly; it wasn’t exactly cool to hug your mom in front of your friends. But then I decided that was stupid, because once you lose your mom to Hades, you stop caring if people know you love her.

Speaking of Hades, I caught sight of Bianca standing off to the side, green cap hiding her face. She looked strangely tired, weary even, but smiled when she caught me looking. “Happy birthday Percy.”

I greeted Celia, who chatted eagerly about how I needed to come visit her so we could go sailing. Then my mom pulled some enchiladas from the oven, and we all sat down to eat. It was a little awkward. My mom had never met any of my friends from school, and I could see her hesitation to mention the whole Greek-gods-are-real thing. But then Nico happened to slip up and admit he’d given me a mythomagic starter pack as my gift, we all laughed, and the mood chilled. Really, we were just normal kids.

If my mom happened to do a spit-take with her water when Bianca mentioned being born in the 20’s… Well, normal-enough kids, at least.

After dinner, we opened presents, and Nico showed me for the millionth time how to play Mythomagic, so I could get good use out of my starter pack. Bianca gave me a cool looking clay pot she’d apparently made and decorated herself, and when I looked at it, I realized it bore scenes of my quest from last winter. There I was, blowing up the water park in the Lotus Casino, talking to Hermes outside a YMCA, and fighting a Hellhound in the middle of a rest stop. It was absolutely beautiful, though the image which started it all—Luke stealing the lightning bolt while I slept—made me sad.

I pushed that down; surely I’d thought about Luke enough for one day. Instead I turned to Bianca, telling her, “This is beautiful. How did you make it?”

She blushed, and pulled her cap further over her head. “I uh.. I’m good with things from the earth, I guess.”

Oh. Right. I forgot that Hades was also the god of riches from the earth. I would never have considered pottery as akin to gold and jewels, but Bianca’s really was beautiful, so I could see how it was equally as priceless.

Celia admitted then that she hadn’t gotten me a gift, which made me feel better, because her birthday was in like four days, and I didn’t have a gift for her either. Then we all played a round of Mythomagic, which I had to admit, was strangely amusing. Especially when I decided to improve the game by making my own cards for heroes we knew. Was it mean to give Clarisse ‘ugly face’ with 700 attack points? Yeah, probably, but it was fun.

Celia left first, because her mom and she were spending the night with family in Connecticut. Once she was gone Bianca, Nico, and I stayed up talking, but soon enough Bianca sent Nico to bed as well. Then it was just the two of us.

I never new quite how to feel about Bianca. The daughter of Hades was my cousin, the only other person who knew what it was like to be a child of the Big Three, but we weren’t all that alike. Bianca tended to fade into the background, and no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to stand out. Just looking at her you’d never know she could open up cracks in the earth which led straight to the Underworld, but she could. I’d seen it, and when I thought about it, it freaked me out a little.

But the real thing that weirded me out about Bianca was how we met. Try as I may, I couldn’t forget that Aphrodite had sent me to the Lotus Casino on a quest for tragic love. So far as I could tell, I didn’t like her, but how could I ever know? Every time I saw her, I remembered I was supposed to love her, and felt stupid or embarrassed. That made it really hard to know how I actually felt about her.

So as we sat on the floor of my living room, I took every effort to keep a certain distance between us, and wondered just how red my face could get before Bianca noticed. Not that she was paying me much attention at all. She seemed lost in her thoughts, and I discovered why when she admitted, “I’ve been looking into our history.”

She looked up and her cap fell off. She didn’t bother to fix it, instead pulling it into her lap and wringing it like a wet rag. Her nervousness was evident, and so I took it upon myself to ask, “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” she admitted with a sigh, leaning back so her head was on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “Absolutely nothing. All I can remember is that we lived in Washington D.C. after my father wiped our memories, but there were dozens of families named di Angelo in D.C. then. I can’t even remember my mother’s name.”

I couldn’t imagine that. Sure, I’d spent most of my life without a clue of who my dad was, but it was different for Bianca. Most likely she’d known—and loved—her mother. Then, Hades had wiped her memory and left her in a hotel for sixty years. Why? Hiding them from Zeus I got, but why wipe their memories? I just didn’t get it, and clearly Bianca didn’t either. From the looks of it, it was driving her a little insane.

“And sometimes I feel… I feel like Nico doesn’t even want to remember. All he wants is to be normal, to be accepted. But I’m not sure that’s possible for us. I know it’s not possible for me.”

I felt for Bianca. I really did. Her own father took everything from her and then left them flat. Now she had a little brother to take care of and a million secrets she couldn’t share with anyone. She didn’t even know how old she was, which was important, because if she was any older than I was…

Three years. It felt like a long time, but I knew it really wasn’t. In three years one of us would either save Olympus, or destroy it. There were times when both prospects were equally horrible, especially when I admitted that it would probably come down to the choice between joining Luke and stopping him.

I scooted closer to Bianca, my awkward self-consciousness forgotten. It was clear she was hurting, and I couldn’t deny her the little comfort of a hand upon her shoulder. Our eyes met, and I told her firmly, “No, it’s not possible for you to be normal. But it’s not possible for me to be normal either. That doesn’t mean we can’t be _happy_ though. If you can’t figure out where you’ve come from, figure out where you’re going. My mom is always telling me not to let anyone else determine my path, not even my father. Don’t let your father determine yours. You’re lucky in a way. You have a clean slate. So don’t live for everyone else; live how you want.”

I thought my words sounded pretty darn encouraging, but Bianca mustn’t have agreed. She frowned, sticking her hands deep into her pockets, “It’s not that easy. I have Nico to think about. What would make me happy might hurt him, and I can’t do that, can I?”

I wished desperately that Annabeth was here. She was the smart one. She’d know what to tell Bianca. But Annabeth was still in Virginia, hopefully finding some peace with her own family. It was up to me, even if I was definitely the wrong person to be giving such advice. “I guess… I guess it depends on what you want, and how it would hurt him. I mean if you plan on stabbing him and joining the circus yeah, that’s probably not a good thing, but if it’s something else… You can hurt someone without harming them, you know? Sometimes the things we have to do for ourselves can hurt those we love, but if we really love them we’re not going to do anything that would actually harm them. Does that make any sense at all?”

I doubted it. It was hard for me to find the words to describe something so complex. But Bianca got something from it, because her eyes lit up, and she nodded, “Yeah, it does. Sometimes we have to do things which hurt those we love, but it’s for the best in the end. Thanks Percy. You’re kind of smart when you’re not trying.”

I chuckled at that, then silence fell over us. After a minute, Bianca climbed to her feet. “I’m going to go to bed. Nico and I need to get back to camp pretty early tomorrow or Chiron’s going to tie his tail in a knot. He really didn’t think it was safe for us to come, but your mom can be pretty scary when determined.”

I smirked, imagining my mom yelling at Chiron and Mr. D, not even caring that they were both immortal. I was glad she’d planned this. It was a good reminder that for the first time I had friends to return to at school. It made me almost long for summer to end, and school to start once more. (But then I thought of math class, and decided to enjoy the present.)

ΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέας

My mom had generously offered Bianca and Nico my room for the night, so I was sleeping on the couch. Once Bianca was gone, I sat on the floor for a few more minutes, before ducking into the bathroom to get ready for bed. I’ll admit it, I was sitting on the toilet when a rainbow appeared before me.

I’d never received an Iris message before, but I’d heard of them, so I scrambled to pull on my pants before the image appeared. I didn’t know who’d be calling me maybe Annabeth, maybe my dad—though that was likely wishful thinking. Whoever it was, I didn’t want them to catch me with my pants down.

Luckily I was quick, and by the time the image fully formed, I was fully clothed. Though in a way, when I realized who the caller was, I was caught with my pants down in another sense.

It was Luke. I shouldn’t have been surprised, this was exactly the kind of thing he’d do, but I was anyways. He looked exactly the same as he’d looked last June—tall, strong, confident. He wore a suit and tie, something I never would have expected to see him in, but it made him look like a proper adult. I supposed, at nineteen, he almost was.

“Happy birthday, Percy.”

I didn’t get Luke. I really didn’t. He and I were enemies. I’d made I very clear that I wouldn’t join him. Whether or not his cause was good, I didn’t trust Kronos, and he shouldn’t either. But he did, so that made us enemies.

But he certainly didn’t act like my mortal enemy. Instead, he acted like I was his wayward little brother, like _I_ was the one who needed to see sense. It infuriated me. It also confused me. It would have been easier to hate Luke if he didn’t keep acting like my friend.

“Thanks.”

What? I wasn’t going to be rude. My mother taught me better than that. You still said your ‘p’s and ‘q’s to your traitorous best friend.

Luke ignored my tone. There was music in the background, and the sun was just setting behind him. He must have been on the west coast, at some sort of fancy party. Maybe it had something to do with that cruise ship of his I’d seen in port by school at the end of the year. It was certainly a step up from the over-crowded Hermes cabin, I’d say that.

And a part of me was just jealous. I wasn’t the kind of kid who got to go to fancy parties on cruise ships. This summer I wasn’t even getting a vacation. We’d hoped to go to the cabin, but mom’s tuition was expensive, we’d decided it just wasn’t a good time for her to take off from work. I didn’t resent her for that, but a part of me resented Luke for living the high life while we had nothing.

_You could have that too if you just joined him,_ a little voice whispered in my mind. I told myself it was Kronos, but that wasn’t true. No, it was just me. The darker parts of me, sure, but still me. Unlike Luke, though, I didn’t give into these selfish parts. I’d rather be poor than a slave, and however nice Luke’s life might look, Kronos was still using him. We’d learned in school how important the slaves of Rome’s emperors were, but that didn’t mean they weren’t slaves.

“I can’t talk for long,” Luke continued, smiling softly. “But I realized it was a lot later there, and I needed to catch you before you went to bed. Have you had a good day?”

I told myself Luke deserved the silent treatment, then promptly answered him anyways, “Yeah, it was pretty good. I got attacked by a yale and met your little half-sister. Then my mom threw me a surprise party. Not big or anything, but a few people from school, Celia, Bi...”

“Wait a second,” Luke interrupted, looking nervous. His eyes were bright and he wrung out his hands. “Did you say you got attacked my a yale? You didn’t kill it, did you?”

What, were we only supposed to kill the monsters with state schools named after them? “It was trying to kill me and a five-year-old. Of course I killed it!”

Luke shook his head, and cursed under his breath. I was getting annoyed with him by the time he deigned to actually explain, “You shouldn’t have done that, Percy. Yales are an endangered species of monster. You’ll be lucky if Artemis doesn’t shoot you for that.”

What? Endangered monsters? “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if monsters were to go extinct?”

Luke waved a hand in a vague gesture of ‘don’t ask me’ and explained, “It has something to do with biodiversity as a goal of conservation biology. Don’t ask me. What matters is you have to be careful. You don’t need to give the gods more reason to hate you.”

“But I didn’t know! And it was trying to kill me! Artemis wouldn’t really kill me for defending myself. That’s not fair.”

Luke raised a brow, and I knew, even before he opened his mouth, exactly what he was going to say. I bit my lip hard, though, and listened to him say it, “Percy, when have you ever known the gods to be fair?”

Let me get something straight from the start. Luke wasn’t wrong about the problems with the gods. Actually, he was right. The gods stunk. They were selfish and cruel at their worst, and at their best, they were indifferent. But they were family, and they were better than Kronos, so in the end, I would defend them. I would even fight for them. That didn’t mean though that I was blind to the truth.

Luke ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it. If he really was on a cruise ship in California, he’d embraced the surfer-boy he’d always resembled. The only thing which ruined the look was the long scar beneath his eye, a permanent sign of his grievances with the gods. It was as much a part of his face as his nose, so generally I didn’t even see it, but it seemed more prevalent that night.

Finally, he sighed and said, “Hopefully Artemis will let it go to avoid angering your father, but you should check out EndangeredMonsters.com for a list before you do it again. But Percy, you need to be more careful.”

I suddenly felt very bitter. Who was Luke to tell me to be careful? He was the one who’d made himself the enemy of the gods themselves. If either of us needed to be careful, it was him, but Luke wasn’t the type to live carefully. “Look who’s talking.”

I had intended to sound bitter, but it ended up sounding like I was teasing him. Maybe I was, and Luke knew it. A smile spread across his lips. “You’re a proper teenager now, snark and all.”

Snark—what a word. Still it made me smile as well, and I chuckled, “Yeah, but you’ve got angsty teen down-pat.”

Luke laughed, a real proper laugh that made my heart ache. Gods I missed him. We’d spent months sitting up all night, talking just like this. There was no one else I could do that with anymore. They were all a lot more serious, and they just didn’t get it the way Luke did. Probably because they were all girls—or ten.

Then Luke’s gaze darkened, and I remembered he could be pretty serious at times as well. “I need to get back to the party. There are some big benefactors here tonight, but I called to tell you about your present. I’ve rented out that cabin in Montauk for you and your mom for the last week of August, and in your mom’s bank account she’ll find more than a week’s wages. You two deserve to have some fun, and I have more money than I know what to do with these days.

I was more than a little embarrassed, and angry as well. I didn’t need Luke’s blood money… and yet… yet I did. My mom deserved a break more than anyone, and this was the only way she was going to get one. Maybe you had to beware Greeks bearing gifts, but you couldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth either.

So I swallowed down my pride, and accepted the gift for what it was- part bribe, part apology. “Thank you. I appreciate you thinking about me.”

Luke laughed, and I didn’t know what he found funny until he said, “Please, Percy. I think about you ever day. This is for you, remember? Even if you’re not ready. Even if you’re too selfish to help. What I do, I do for you, and for all of us.”

Maybe it was the cake in my belly, or maybe Luke’s bribe was just working, but I didn’t bother fighting with him. Instead, I asked a dangerous question, “Can I… can I call you like this again?”

He held back his smile, but I could tell how thrilled Luke was with my words. “You shouldn’t. It’s not very secure, and if the gods find out we’ve talked, you’ll be in danger. But if you ever need anything, I’ll be here. Though, Percy, we’ll see each other sooner than you expect anyways. Until then, stay safe, find me if you need help, and enjoy your vacation. Oh, and happy birthday.”

Before I could say anything, the image flickered out. I stood in the bathroom for a little while longer, leaning against the wall and trying to sort out my feelings for Luke. He was such an idiot, but it took a true friend to buy you a vacation with their newfound wealth. Never mind the fact that he’d taken a big risk calling me. (And I certainly didn’t miss that my father had not taken such a risk at all).

Finally I decided just to go to bed. I would never really sort out Luke’s problem; I just had to keep trying to save him in any way I could. Though, as I fell asleep, I found myself wondering just why I’d be seeing him again sometime soon.


	2. No Way This Year Anyone's Gonna Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> χαίρετε!
> 
> Wait, an update?
> 
> My deepest apologies for the long delay. I could give you many excuses, but I'll just say that I'm doing my best. I broke into a Mycenean tomb on December 31, 2019, and I'm pretty sure the whole world has been paying the price ever since. LUCKILY, I have a number of chapters written and the whole fic plotted, so it should be smooth sailing from here on out. 
> 
> Also, I actually wrote the first half of this chapter two years ago, back before J.K. Rowling imploded. I want to make it clear that I stand with the trans community, and condemn any form of hate. I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of the AVPM references.

# Chapter 2-No Way This Year Anyone’s Gonna Die

I dropped my suitcase on the floor, and breathed in the salty air. Poseidon House—Atlantis House as Celia liked to call it—looked right out at the sea, and it seemed to sparkle in the afternoon light. Every wave beckon me forward, luring me towards its depths. I could breathe underwater, so surely I’d be fine. I could swim right down to Atlantis, find my father and live like a prince. Or I could just dive into waves and never return, drift away in sweet bliss.

Water squirted against the back of my head, and I turned to find Celia pointing a finger gun at me. “No brooding allowed; we have to get to assembly. I missed the show last year and I have never forgiven myself for it.”

I cringed, wondering if Apollo accepted sacrifices to prevent dramatic atrocities. Though actually, Mr. D was the god of theater, so maybe I’d have to break out the Diet Coke to put an end to all this. Or just let the chaos flow. Honestly, at AA, that was the best thing you could do. Luke had taught me that first day.

For once, the reminder of him didn’t make me sad. Instead, I just turned on the sink, and sprayed Celia right back.

περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεουςπερσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεους περσεουςπερσεους περσεους 

In the school auditorium, Annabeth was sitting with Bianca and Nico, so Celia and I slid right in. Annabeth raised her eyes and smiled at me, and my heart skipped a beat. Immediately, I flushed bright red. Why was I so excited to see her? It was just… just Annabeth. Sure, we shared something special together after our quest, but she was just my friend.

_And it’s okay to be excited about a friend,_ I promised myself. _And she’s the only one you didn’t see at your birthday, so of course you’re most excited to see her._

“How was Virginia?”

Annabeth frowned, and I immediately regretted my question. Instead of answering, she just asked, “Did you actually kill a yale? They’re endangered, you know, and preserving biodiversity is a primary goal of conservation ecology.”

“So I’ve been told,” I answered, rolling my eyes. Then, my heart stopped, because I realized just who had told me that.

Annabeth must have known it too, because she furrowed her brow and pursed her lip. “Percy you shouldn’t be...”

“Hey Percy,” Nico interrupted, bouncing in his seat. “Do you like my hair?”

His hair? I hadn’t even noticed. Now that he mentioned it, though, it looked a little shorter—particularly in the back. It was kind of a look, if I was being honest. Floppy hair had always been more my style, but whatever made Nico happy. Though why he’d care what _I_ thought of his hair… “Sure Nico, it’s cool. Who cut it for you?”

“Bianca did,” he replied, smiling wide as could be. Bianca rolled her eyes, so clearly there was more to the story. I could tell from the way he rested on the edge of his seat that Nico was desperate to tell me it too, but he wanted me to ask first.

Honestly, I didn’t exactly care, but I had a brotherly duty to pretend otherwise. I considered torturing him just for the fun of it, though. Bianca, however, looked thoroughly exasperated, and I did need to talk to Annabeth, so I just went for it. “Why did she cut your hair?”

“One of the sixth-graders set it on fire! It was so cool. His hands just like lit up and then he swatted me on the head and it burned all my hair!” Nico exclaimed, pointing to a scrawny, elf-faced Latino boy sitting with the other new students in the front row. I wondered if he’d grown up knowing he was a demigod. Probably; it would be hard to explain the fire-hands otherwise. I wasn’t sure I quite liked him, though. He needed to be more careful. I knew how dangerous demigod powers could be first-hand. Maybe Nico’s hair was an acceptable casualty, but we didn’t want someone actually getting hurt.

Then again, that was half of the reason we were here at AA. Learn to protect ourselves from monsters, and others from ourselves. Maybe I should make an effort to help him out sometimes. Fire and water, what could possibly go wrong?

Chiron, in his wheelchair form, rolled onto the stage and clapped his hands. Slowly everyone fell silent, and a smile spread wide across his face, “Welcome back everyone. Now, I have a few announcements to make later, but first, Apollo House has decided to, once again, bless us with a musical beginning to our year.”

“Mr. D is the one sponsoring it,” Annabeth whispered in my ear, shivering in frightened anticipation. “They bribed him with Diet Coke after Chiron said no.”

Dang, I should have gotten my sacrifice sooner.

Lee Fletcher, head of Apollo House, shuffled on the stage with a suitcase that looked suspiciously like mine. In fact, Lee had on an orange AA t-shirt and seemed to have tousled his usually styled hair, making him look a lot like me. When our eyes met, he winked, and I slid down in my seat. Yeah, I definitely should have made my sacrifice sooner. Forget diet coke, they probably just had to tell Mr. D they were going to humiliate me to get permission for their little show.

Music started to play, just the same few notes repeating for far too long, as if everyone had forgotten what came next. People started to laugh awkwardly, but I had no doubt this was part of the song. Finally, the music shifted, and Lee raised his gaze.

“In the New York streets I hear the sneers and feel the glares of my stepdad, my mother and the gods. Can’t believe how cruel they are, and it stings these heroic scars to know they’ll never, never give me what I want. I know I don’t deserve these awful rules made by Herakles here on Looooong Island. I can’t take these stupid mortals, but despite all of these chortles, I’m still alive.”

“Hey Percy, I think he’s you,” Celia chuckled—or was it chortled. I rolled my eyes and pretended I wasn’t dying inside.

“I gotta get back to Achilles. I gotta get back to SCHOOOOL. I gotta get back to Achilles. Where everybody thinks I’m cool,” Lee continued, dancing about. The rest of Apollo House followed onto the stage, singing as they went.

“Back to quest and to danger, to killable beasts, to satyrs and ghosts and to sacrificing. To all that I love and to all that I need at Achilles. Achilles. I’m glad I’m going back.”

Chiron rolled back on stage, looking visibly relieved, even as he interrupted the performance. “Thank you, Apollo House, that’s a very catchy tune, but I did ask you to do our history, not … this.”

“Ah come on, we’re almost to the bit,” Lee complained, looking to Mr. D. In the front row.

The school director was slurping a diet coke, but pulled out the straw long enough to shout, “Let them do the bit. It’s why it’s funny.”

Chiron paled and looked over at me. I just shrugged, and he gave up, wheeling back off the stage. Lee looked a bit flustered by the interruption, but snapped his finger, “I’ll kill some monsters with a swing of my sword, going to Hades yeah bring it on! And do it all with my best from Luke because together we’re totally awesome.”

Someone else, a scar across their eye, jumped onto the stage, shouting, “Yeah, ‘cause together we’re totally awesome.”

I clenched my fist. Besides me, Annabeth looked like she wasn’t sure whether to cry, or to kill them. Knowing Annabeth, it would probably be the latter.

But then it got worse, because the music suddenly cut out, and a half-dozen demigods charged on the stage at “Luke” shouting, “He doesn’t even go here! Kill the traitor!”

I couldn’t bare it, and looked away. The crowd was torn between laughing out of amusement and because they were just so uncomfortable. Chiron had clearly had enough. He rolled on the stage, helped the boy playing Luke up, and then shooed them all off.

“You can look now,” Bianca whispered, laying her hand on my leg. I stiffened at the movement, wondering for the millionth time why I had to overthink everything Aphrodite had said.

But I didn’t ponder it for long, because Chiron rose from his wheelchair, letting his full form fill the stage. He was so often the kindly teacher, it was difficult to remember sometimes that he was also formidable in his own right. And now? Now he was angry. Chiron cared about all his students, but Luke had always been one of his favorites. He’d been everyone’s favorite. That was why it stung so badly.

“I will say this once, and only once,” Chiron informed us, sounding every bit the immortal trainer of Achilles he was. “Every hero must choose their own path. It is true that many of our former students have chosen to turn against the gods, and this grieves us all greatly, because a house divided can never stand. Yet it is for that reason that we ourselves _mustn’t_ be divided. Even when they choose a different path, they are still your brothers and sisters, your cousins and relations. We are all Greeks, and that is all that matters.”

Chiron paused, sighing. Half of the students weren’t even listening to him. The Stoll brothers must have figured out about the boy whose hands lit on fire, because they were playing the age-old game of feather-up-the-nose. Lou Ellen, however, having taken pity on the boy, had removed the nose from his body. Unfortunately, from the way he writhed, it still tickled.

“Hermes House, have we had enough?” Chiron asked them, and they all dropped their game. Chiron never called people out for their misbehavior, even when it was so obvious. They knew they were in trouble.

Not as much trouble as the rest of their house, however, because Lou Ellen had dropped the boy’s nose, and now they were all scrambling to find it. Chiron sighed, waiting for them to settle down. Finally the boy got his nose back, and I heard him say, “I don’t know, it was kind of nice. I’ve been stuck with this terrible smell all my life, but with my nose halfway across the room, I suddenly realizes I’ve been smelling _myself_ all along!”

It wasn’t a particularly good joke, but it earned the Stolls’ and Lou Ellen’s vote of approval. Great, just what we needed, more jokers in Hermes house.

_Actually,_ I realized. _That’s exactly what we do need. All this gloomy sons of Hermes are getting us nowhere._

“Now that we are settled,” Chiron continued, casting his gaze across all of the students and landing on me. “I have an important announcement to make. In the spirit of Greek unity, we shall be hosting at the end of this Fall term a Panhellenic game. Much like the Olympic games of old, these competitions shall be open to any and all Greeks. We shall be joined by alumni, the Huntress of Artemis, and perhaps even the Amazons themselves. It is sure to be a great competition, and I look forward not only to your participation, but to the spirit of community this event will foster.”

The whole school bubbled with excitement, and I couldn’t blame them. Demigod Olympics? It was going to be nuts, but definitely fun. _Maybe they’ll even have swimming and you can become, like, the Michael Phelps of the demigod world. Huh. Do you think you could actually beat Michael Phelps for real? Is it cheating for demigods to go to the Olympics? Didn’t we invent the Olympics?_

“They used to do these every four years, but it fell out of favor in the nineties,” Annabeth told me, practically buzzing. “I wonder what we’ll have for events. They never could come to a consensus about whether to focus on the ancient sports or modern ones. You know many of the modern Olympic events are the same as those in the funeral games of Patroklus…”

“Do you think I can convince Chiron to make Mythomagic an event?” Nico interjected. “Because really it’s kind of a sport, and it could be really fun if we convinced every demigod to play, because it’s about our parents.”

For some strange reason, I doubted Mythomagic had been played at the funeral games of Patroklus. I didn’t quite get what Nico liked about the game so much, but it might be funny to convince the Hunters of Artemis to play. Granted, the Hunters terrified me, so I wasn’t about to invite them. It was still an amusing mental image.

Slowly, Chiron managed to get the crowd under control and announced, “Since we had the foresight to bring them ahead for orientation, many of our new students have already been claimed, but let us also give them a warm welcome, and let this new year begin!”

Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους ΠερσεουςΠερσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους ΠερσεουςΠερσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους Περσεους

I’d forgotten how chaotic a school full of half-bloods could be and _oi theoi,_ did I love it.

Mr. D’s sons, Castor and Pollux, had decided to bring out their powers, oozing a drunken revelry among our campfire. Sullenness was banished and every one of us left self-consciousness behind. We danced to the Apollo kid’s songs, took turns trying to jump straight over the fire, and listened to poetry rap battles in perfect epic verse.

When Silena Beauregard interrupted, I was halfway through a game of κότταβος. The game was ancient and fairly simple. We’d replaced the wine skins with orange juice pulp, but all we had to do was fling the pulp at a target on a tree. If you missed, you drank. Even without the prerequisite drunkenness, the bitter competition made it fun. I was terrible too, and plenty willing to admit it. Clarisse and Nico, for some reason, were the two who found my struggling the funniest. Still, my pride didn’t mind Silena’s interrupting, and it was _Silena._ How could anyone mind?

“Hey! How was your break?” I asked her.

Silena’s smile lit up the night like he namesake. “It was great. My dad owns a candy store, though, so I'm not sure I'll still fit in my bathing suit. It was worth it, though.”

I chuckled. I loved that Mom was going back to school, but I did miss the blue candy.

“Maybe we’ll have team workouts to get back in shape. I was thinking tryouts next week, if that works for you?”

I was shocked she was even checking, but it made me smile. It was good to remember I was important for reasons beyond my quest. I had friends here, so many, even with Luke gone. Another layer of worry rose right off me, like offerings in the fire. “Yeah, sounds great to me.”

Silena bit her lip, and a quiet voice told me something else was on her mind. But it proved to be harmless. “Will you kill me if I make it captain’s orders for you to come play spin the bottle with us?”

I blushed just at the request, but there was a lightness to the air and when I looked over at who was playing, it knew it had to be fun. Mostly, neither Bianca nor Annabeth were there, so it was impossible for it to get weird. “Just good fun?”

“I mean ... we’ll use it as blackmail forever, but yeah, good fun,” Silena smirked and I decided to go for it. What could go wrong?

Before I had even taken my seat, I noticed Nico running to join us. “No way,” I waved a finger, channeling my Mom’s “disappointed” look the best I could. “You’re way too young for this.”

Nico pouted, but maybe it was just that I knew who his dad was, but I didn’t find it particularly convincing. Travis Stoll, however, pointed out, “Technically, he’s older than all of us.”

Nico liked that argument, and began nodding furiously. I considered it for a moment, scanning the crowd for Biana to back me up. If anyone had actual power over Nico, it was her. But I found her talking to a sixth-grader with a feather in her hair, talking to the girl and _laughing._ I couldn’t interrupt her for this.

Plus, what did it really matter? It was just a game. “Alright, it’s not like I’m your dad.”

The bounce in Nico’s step as he sat down across from me promised I’d made a good choice. I wasn’t his Dad, and that was a good thing. Nico’s dad ... well, Nico was nothing like him. Maybe it was just my job to keep it that way.

We began to play, and my leg jittered as it got closer to my turn. Next to me, I heard Silena promise her mother a piece of chocolate cake before spinning the bottle. It landed on a burly, African-American boy I’d seen in the forge before, Beckendorf, I thought. From the slump to her shoulders, Aphrodite wasn’t getting any cake, but Silena was stilly bubbly as she bounced over and kissed the Hephaestus boy on the cheek. I couldn’t see a blush in his dark skin, but he nearly fell flat on his face as he tried to return to his place in the circle. 

Then, it was all me. A strange excitement pushed me forward, and I flicked the bottle around. It seemed to spin forever, and was about to stop only a couple spots over from me when a gust of wind sent it spinning further. It landed right on Nico.

“Oh, um,” I stuttered, rubbing the back of my neck. We were playing that gender didn’t matter, but this was Nico. It would be like kissing my brother.

Nico himself looked ready to vomit. His dark eyes had gone wide, his olive skin seemed to have turned ghost-pale, and I could feel the sweat breaking across his brow. Not to mention that his cheeks were redder than our campfire. Everyone else looked equally uncomfortable.

“You can just spin again,” Silena suggested to a chorus of agreement. “Housemates are off-limits, and he spends just as much time with you as in Hermes.”

“Eww, don’t say it like that. ‘In Hermes?’ That’s my _dad_.” Travis made a gagging noise, and the tension quickly dissipated into laughter. I joined in, until I noticed Nico was on the brink of tears. I was about to say something when he jumped to his feet and dashed off.

I wanted to slam my head against a wall. Instead, I climbed to my feet. I’d promised myself, once, to be everything for Nico that Luke should have been for me. It was hard not to feel responsible for the Son of Hades who didn’t even know he _was_ the son of Hades. It was also just hard not to feel responsible for the wide-eyed boy who loved mythomagic and had way too much energy all the time. And maybe, a part of me, thrived on it too. It felt good to be needed as a person, a friend, and not just as a hero.

Nico hadn’t gone far; I cornered him by the edge of the crowds. He seemed to shrink when he saw me, until he looked even younger than the eighty-going-on-eleven we thought he was. _He’s definitely too young for spin-the-bottle,_ I decided. I probably was too though, if I was being honest. I loved Silena, but the Aphrodite girls kind of ruined everything.

“I’m sorry for acting like a stupid little kid,” Nico muttered when he saw me approaching.

I just shrugged, “Nico, you are a kid. We’re all kids. But that doesn’t make you stupid. The game is stupid.”

“I’m the one who wanted to play.”

Did Nico want to be responsible for his own pain? Maybe. I’d certainly met people like that. But it seemed like a really, really stupid thing to lay blame over. “I mean, I thought I did too, but I don’t think there is anyone in that circle I actually wanted to kiss.” I didn’t think there was _anyone_ I actually wanted to kiss. Not really. Girls must just grow up faster, to be obsessed with all this stuff.

“What if Annabeth was there?”

I sputtered. _Annabeth?_ Did Nico actually think … “I don’t like Annabeth.”

“She likes you; that’s why she’s so mean to you,” Nico seemed too certain of it; I had to figure out who’d he’d been talking to. Because it couldn’t have been Annabeth, right? Annabeth didn’t…

GAHHH! I’d take the monsters over _this_ any day.

“Nico, I don’t really think about girls all that much. It’s okay if you don’t either.” It wasn’t entirely true; I thought about Annabeth all the time, Bianca and Celia too. But it was just that I had a lot of girl friends and not enough guy friends. We were working on it, alright?

Nico kicked the ground, and I wondered if he even noticed that the action dug a hole in the ground just a little too deep. I noticed, though, and it made me gulp. Bianca really needed to tell Nico the truth soon, or I would have to.

“What...” I did not think I'd ever heard Nico hesitant before. The boy was so enthusiastic about everything, I normally had to slow him down. Now, the words fell slowly, and I could feel the energy they took him to get out. “What about boys? Do you ever think about them?”

_Oh_. “Um, not any more than girls, I don’t think … But it’s okay if you do?”

I hadn’t meant to make it a question, but I just felt too awkward. Was Nico gay? Could eleven-year-olds even be gay? AA didn't offer sex ed. Maybe it needed to, because I didn't have a clue how to deal with this situation.

“I don’t,” Nico quickly interjected, a wall of defensiveness clear. Still, Nico continued, “It’s just … It wasn’t okay, when I come from.”

I bit my lip. Yeah, and, unfortunately, I knew there were plenty of places where it still wasn’t okay. If there was one thing Gabe had taught me, it was that mortals could be monsters too. Still, if Nico really was questioning this, I didn’t want to scare him.

Instead, I decided just to do my best to cheer him up. “The gods have always had gay lovers. The ancient Greeks were all for it.”

For some reason, that just made Nico’s frown deepen. I understood only when he shook his head, “That’s not true, though. Everyone here says it, but I read a book about it.”

Nico was too young for any of our classes, so Chiron tutored him privately. I had to wonder what the centaur was doing giving Nico _that._

“It was super strict for them, what was okay. You needed an older man and a younger boy, and the younger boy had to be the, uh, bottom? The Romans were even stricter about it … I just mean … I think we all want it to be the same as it is now, but it isn’t. It never has been.”

I didn’t know if he was right, but it was probably true. Even the stories about ancient heroes didn’t quite match. Hercules was kind of a jerk. And so was Theseus. And Jason. They kind of all stunk, actually. Just like the gods kind of did too.

“Well, then maybe it’s a good thing we’re not _ancient_ Greeks. I don’t want to be like them. I want to be better.” I was tempted to leave it at that, not to press further. But it seemed like a cop out. Nico was still clearly upset. There was something gnawing at him, and he was so small. It might just swallow him whole.

So , I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it tight. “Look, Nico, I don’t know anything about relationships. But I know you’re like a brother to me, and I'll always love you. The real you, whoever that is. There is nothing you can do that would change that. Do you believe me?”

Nico was young, but he was old enough to hear the weight of my words. Yet the strange thing was, the weight of them made him seem light. When he finally nodded, I knew he truly meant it. “Yeah. I do. I mean, Luke tried to kill the gods, and you’re still friends with him.”

Nico said the words so honestly, so ignorant of how deep they cut, that I tried my best to hide the pain. This was about him, not me, and certainly not Luke. Still, he wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know much, but I knew I'd do anything for those I loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter actually gets a bit funky with the discussion of sexuality, so I just want to say a few things. One, I love you and you have value, regardless of whom you do (or don’t) love. I’m asexual and biromantic myself, so there will certainly be zero tolerance for hate in this fic. 
> 
> That said, Percy is 13. I don’t always make him act that way. I think the prolonged exposure to Luke has made my Percy a little angstier and stuck in his head than canon Percy. But still, he’s 13, and we really don’t see a ton of romantic stuff from canon-Percy until he’s older. So he’s not the best person for Nico to be having this conversation with. 
> 
> The second thing is, you'll hear a lot of different things about homosexuality in the ancient world. In short, like with most aspects of ancient culture, we really don't know. There were definitely circumstances where homosexual relationships were not only acceptable, but encouraged. There were also plenty of circumstances in which it was condemned. I'd encourage anyone interested to do some reading into the subject, but just know that that it is a complicated question. 
> 
> Finally, maybe Nico's openness here are a bit surprising, but you have to remember, canon-Nico was in the “safe” space of Camp Half-Blood for a week. This Nico has been at Achilles for nine months. He’s had a lot more time to adjust properly, and a lot less trauma, than canon-Nico. He’s also closer to Percy than canon-Nico. Thus, this scene crept its way in; I certainly hadn’t planned it originally.


	3. The Awkwardest Family Dinner Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the moment, my updating schedule is basically going to be "whenever I finish a chapter, but no less than once a week." Thus, enjoy!

#  Chapter 3- The Awkwardest Family Dinner Ever

Sometimes, I could blame Mr. D for my less-than-stellar perception of time. The god controlled the school's climate, after all. If I could wear flip-flops one day and needed snow boots the next, the grumpy god was to blame.

In all fairness, though, I was also just that ADHD. The fall semester flew by, despite the numerous crises that came from a school full of half-bloods.

The big drama of September was discovering that one of the sixth graders, Piper, was the daughter of Aphrodite. That itself wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except apparently Piper was also the daughter of one Tristan McClean.

Chiron had decided, for enrichment, the whole school should go see _The King of Sparta_ , so we could discuss its historical inaccuracies. The inaccuracies weren’t nearly as hard to find as the plot, but part of that was the monsters who wouldn’t stop distracting us. Xerxes hadn’t even made it across the Hellespont before we were interrupted by a murder of Harpies.

(I don’t actually know the technical term for a crap-ton of harpies, but if a group of crows is a “murder,” a group of demon bird-ladies definitely is too.)

They were dispatched by a surprising display of school unity, and I managed to catch a few of the movie's dramatic monologues, in between the random screams coming from my classmates. The real buzz-kill was the Calydonian boar which blew up the theater before we could see the King of Sparta die dramatically at Thermopylae.

The original Calydonian boar hunt was like the Avengers Infinity War of Greek mythology, and our reenactment should have been the talk of the school for weeks. Except Drew Tanaka and a bunch of other girls had snuck out two days later to actually see the ending, made the connection about Piper’s father, and lost it. According to Silena, Drew _hated_ her newest sister, who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the house. Discovering Piper’s dad was famous was just the stone which knocked down the temple.

The ensuing war kept the whole school on-edge for a month. Even now, I still walked the long way to avoid passing Aphrodite House on my way to class. Poor Silena was getting chocolates delivered weekly and still losing weight from all the stress.

But this was AA, and life moved on, even as vicious doves interrupted mine and Drew’s English class and as Piper’s new friend Leo Valdez “accidentally” burned up Drew’s whole wardrobe.

Leo was nice, and quickly becoming a friend, but the kid was even more of a disaster than me. He was the primary source of excitement for October, because apparently there was a bronze dragon somewhere in the woods. So far, only the head had been found, but every house was still in a competition to see who could kill those stupid myrmekes and look for more. If only the stupid ants breathed actual fire and not _acid._ Leo was apparently fireproof, and I had water powers. Fire would have been a piece of cake. But nooooo. That was too easy.

(Leo and I had bonded over our shared acid burns and stories of all the schools we’d gotten expelled from. Annabeth, Bianca, and Piper, apparently, had bonded over how stupid Leo and I were.)

November was so full of drama, I couldn’t keep track of it all. The unfortunate case of food poisoning that only affected unclaimed kids was the bitter start of it, and it only ended with the month itself, when Chiron finally convinced Mr. D that _Ares House could not be allowed to keep their landmines, thank you very much._

But through it all, we learned. Nico was given a formal curriculum and a tutor after Chiron discovered neither he nor Bianca knew what a computer was. I actually managed to remember my second aorist stems for Greek . And Annabeth, unsurprisingly, was the first seventh-grader to qualify for taking Algebra I. I beat the state record for the 200 meter butterfly and maybe met a nice cyclops all on the same day. The usual life of a pubescent demigod.

December finally came with freezing snow and burning excitement. The PanHellenic games (“Really, Percy, they’re not Olympic, because we’re not at Olympia”) were meant to commence on the 21st, but Chiron was convinced we should all go to class through the 20th. For weeks, though, no one had been able to focus, because contestants started trickling in.

Some were older demigods who’d graduated. They were both intimidating competition and fun to have around, a strange insight into what our lives might be like in a few years. (And it was honestly nice to see that some of us did make it past eighteen.) It made me a little sad, though, to see my classmates meeting their older siblings. I, of course, had none, though Celia and I did discover that she had an older brother, Nived.

“Why didn’t I ever think about moving in here?” The Indian demigod had marveled just at the thought of having his own room. Hermes House was, of course, fuller than ever. Nico and Bianca had basically just moved in with me to make more room over there.

On the sixteenth, the Hunters of Artemis arrived, and with them, sheer chaos. I’d hoped, after months of silence, that no one had noticed the dead yale. No such luck. Artemis was, apparently, unwilling to start a war with my father, but that just meant they weren’t allowed to kill me. Chase me naked through the snow in the middle of the night shooting arrows at me? For three nights straight?  


Free game, apparently.

(I still didn’t know how they were getting me naked. The third night I’d gone to bed with six layers on, and it had _still_ happened.)

The Hunters, though, weren’t the most intimidating group to show. No, that right was reserved for the _Amazons,_ with whom the Hunters seemed to have a rivalry. If the Hunters would kill you in your sleep, the Amazons seemed just as willing to do it when you were awake. The only thing which kept all-out fights was the ἐκεχειρία, or sacred truce, which bound us all. No one wanted to risk whatever horrible curse would come from starting a fight, so even verbal taunts were limited. Flashy shows of skill everywhere on campus, however, were fair game.

RIP my backpack after I decided walking between some Hunters and some Amazons when I was late for math class was worth the risk. Zoe, the head of the hunters, swore it had been an accident.

(Not even Bianca, who loved the huntress, believed it.)

But none of the chaos inherent to either life at Achilles or these games prepared me for dinner on the 21st, when the games were officially about to begin. Chiron had just stood to make the opening sacrifices when, in the distance, came the stomping of feet and tooting of horns.

The rush for the windows was immediate. My table was one of the furthest, so I had no chance at all of seeing over the many heads. I could hear something was wrong, though. The original curious chatter quickly morphed into suspicious whispers, then bitter, shrieking fury. My heart pounded. A sneaking suspicion was creeping into my mind, but I didn’t want to believe it. Not even as I heard Zoe Nightshade hiss, “The Crooked One.”

The doors to the dining hall swung open. Everyone turned, but now, I was at the front of the crowd. There was no mistaking it then. Dozens of demigods stood in the doorway, various weapons hanging from their belts. Some were as young as eight, others much older. They all looked a little ragged and a lot dangerous.

Except, of course, for the teen in the center. With his scarred eye and long sword, he could have been the most intimidating of them all. But when our eyes met, he smiled, and it was just impossible to be afraid. My heart was too busy aching.

The moment was broken as three huntresses let to the front of the crowd with a scream, bows drawn high. It could have all been over then, but Chiron had the presence of mind to shout, “The peace!”

One of the huntresses responded too slowly. Her arrow flew, but was quickly intercepted by another arrow. Zoe Nightshade lowered her bow, somehow managing to glare at both her huntress and Luke simultaneously. Then, snapped in Greek, “Τῇ Ἀρτέμῐδῐ τά ἐκεχειρία ὲστί ἱερᾰ́.”

“The truce is sacred to all the gods, not just Artemis,” Luke interjected, gaining a literal _hiss_ from some of the gathered Amazons. “And it is in the spirit of truce that we are here. These games are about us Greeks coming together as one. We’re all about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters. _Pan_ -Hellenism means _all_ Greeks. Whatever … _ideological_ … differences we may have, we have just as much right to compete as you.”

I could feel the anger brimming through the assembled crowd, but—especially among the older demigods—there were some murmurs of agreement. It made sense. Many of them probably knew Luke, and he was hard not to love.

He was also the most infuriating person I’d ever met in my life, but that was another story.

Everyone looked to the head table and Chiron. I wondered, now, if this was why Mr. D had disappeared for the night. Gods weren’t supposed to get involved in things like this. Plus, even gods were bound by sacred truces.

Chiron, however immortal, was not a god, not in the proper sense. Unlike with a god, I could see his many years in the lines on his face. As he looked at Luke, his eyes looked so unbelievably old. Finally, Chiron admitted, “Luke is right. This is why the truce exists. Though we may, at times, be enemies, we must remember that which unites us all. With the hopes that, once we do, we will not be enemies any longer.”

Somehow, I doubted Luke and all of his cronies were just going to “give up” serving Kronos because they won a boxing match. More likely, this had just been too prime a recruitment opportunity for Luke to resist.

_For Kronos to resist,_ I reminded myself. It was so easy to forget who was pulling the strings, which was why I couldn’t. I didn’t really care about the gods, but I couldn’t trust Kronos. Luke might honestly believe the titan would bring a new Golden Age. I didn’t.

“My thoughts exactly.” Luke flashed Chiron a Hollywood smile. No one in the room forgot that Hollywood was full of actors.

Chiron sighed, scanning the hall. “Hermes House will be rather full, I expect. Perhaps, in the name of Pan-Hellenism we shall simply abolish the usual table system while our guests are here. Now, please, everyone, retake your seats so we can officially begin these games.”

At first, no one moved. Then I saw Nico roll his eyes and break from the group, taking a seat at the Poseidon table like he’d long wanted to. It broke the tension, and slowly everyone filtered towards their seats. If I’d had any foresight, I would have run to the Hermes tables, hid myself between others. But I was terribly at foresight, and just sat back next to Nico.

Luke—and a bunch of his followers—immediately fell upon my table. “Hey Percy. You’ve grown.”

Luke’s words lit me on fire. He wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t even really my friend. Why couldn’t he just leave well-enough alone?

  
I couldn’t do it. I jumped to my feet and fled the dining hall.

Τηισισνοτηοςγρεεκςορκσβυτιτισφυντοπρετενδτηατιτις

When I heard someone climbing up towards me, I stiffened, expecting it to be Luke. He didn’t know my little hideout—I’d only found it after he’d left—but a son of Poseidon hiding on a lifeguard’s chair was not overly subtle.

It wasn’t Luke, but Annabeth. She’d needed her hands to climb up, but pinched between her teeth was a napkin overflowing with chicken nuggets. It looked absolutely ridiculous, especially because the nuggets were beginning to fall out. I snatched one from right beneath her chin, laughing. “I didn’t know McDonalds’s delivered by owl.”

“Shut up,” she told me. (After removing the napkins from her mouth, obviously.) “Or you don’t get any.”

I shut up. I was mad at Luke for a whole host of reasons. The feast I was missing, though, was definitely one of them.

Annabeth divvied out the remaining nuggets, then pulled ketchup packets from her jeans. We ate in silence, listening to the waves crash against the shore. In part, I just didn’t know what to say. But it was okay, because Annabeth, better than anyone, understood.

“I can’t believe I didn’t predict this. I feel so stupid,” she finally admitted. My heart broke too, because for a daughter of Athena, stupid was the worst thing you could be.

I, I didn’t mind being stupid. I still hated being blindsided. “We all should have seen it. I should have seen it. He told me on my birthday he’d be seeing me ‘soon.’”

I’d never admitted to speaking to Luke on my birthday, not to Annabeth, but she’d probably guessed it months back. Who else would have told me about yales being endangered? “When he called on my birthday, I just hung up.”

“He caught me with my pants down,” I admitted, though I certainly wasn’t going to mention _just_ how true it was.

“Just like he did tonight,” Annabeth dryly noted. She looked up at the stars for a moment, fighting back tears. But I could see as her tears turned to anger. “I just don’t understand what he wants! Does he think we’ll betray our parents because he’s _nice_ to us?”

  
Unfortunately, I knew the answer to that. Annabeth had a far better relationship with her mom than any half-blood I’d ever met. Plus, she’d been at Achilles since she was _seven_. She didn’t know what it was like to be kicked out of school after school. She didn’t know how rare it was, out there, for people to be _nice_ to people like us. Before Achilles, I’d had my mom, and that was it. Luke had stepped in and filled a gap I hadn’t even known was there. Luke had known, though. Luke knew exactly how to play people.

It would be better if he was at least malicious about it. I still couldn’t find any malice in him, though. Not towards us. It was only the gods he hated. “He thinks he’s right, Annabeth. And this is just the perfect opportunity for him to show everyone how much better life is under Kronos.”

“But Kronos is _evil_.”

  
I shrugged. I certainly wasn’t going to fight Annabeth on that. Not only was arguing with Annabeth a fool’s errand, I also agreed. I just knew, in my heart, that Kronos was up to no good. He just wanted power. And maybe Zeus just wanted power too. I wasn’t going to defend Zeus, that was for sure. But at least Zeus had never lied to me.

Annabeth sighed loudly, slumping deeper into the chair and throwing her head back. “Of course, in Roman mythology Saturn was given a second chance in Italy. He’s a god of destruction, but also of renewal. They have to go hand-in-hand.”

I thought Luke might have mentioned that once, amid one of his explanations for why the gods were the evil ones. I sighed. It probably would be easier to hate Luke if mythology wasn’t so _complicated_.

“I don’t want a war,” I finally admitted to Annabeth, and to myself. “Luke thinks I’m selfish, that I just want to protect myself, that I’m not willing to fight for something better. But I just don’t want a war.”

Annabeth blinked, but reached out, squeezing my hand tight. “I don’t think that’s selfish, Percy. I think Luke’s selfish. Whatever he says about the gods or Kronos, this is just about his dad.”

She was probably right, and maybe that was why I was so angry with him. He’d lied to me, but now he was just lying to himself. He didn’t care if Kronos was just using him, would just use all of us. Anything to hurt Hermes.

Which was so stupid, because Hermes cared about him. He cared so badly, and Luke was the only one who couldn’t see it.

(Did Poseidon care about me, and I just couldn’t see it? Or was I just lying to myself too?)

“The games only last a week. Maybe we can avoid him.” Even as she said it, Annabeth definitely knew we couldn’t. And worst of all, I wasn’t sure we should. Luke was being used. Even if he was trying to use others as well, that didn’t change the fact that Kronos had crawled into his mind, into his dreams, and led him astray. But he wasn’t a bad person. 

“He swore on the river Styx not to let the gods use me. To ‘make it right’ for me and Thalia.”

“What?” Annabeth snapped her head towards me. Her shock was reasonable; you didn’t mess around with oaths. If Luke didn’t believe he was doing the right thing, he would have been struck dead already.

“And I swore I would save him from his fate,” I admitted. I could see the moment the words set in; suddenly, Annabeth was looking at a corpse.

She certainly didn’t treat me with tender care and affection, though. Instead, she jumped from the lifeguard chair, rolling as she hit the ground. “Uggg! You’re both so stupid!”

With that, she was gone. I nibbled on the last chicken nugget and stared up at the sky. The constellations seemed to shine brighter than ever. My mom had long told me their names, but now, I understood their stories a bit too well. My eyes flickered from Orion—driven crazy by Apollo—to Ursa major—raped by Zeus and hunted by Artemis. Finally, my eyes landed on Andromeda. I’d spent a lot of time wishing I could save my mom like Perseus had saved her. And, in the end, I had. If it hadn’t been for Luke, though, I wouldn’t have even needed to.

But if Poseidon had just stayed away and kept his oath, my mom would never have been in danger in the first place. If I didn’t exist, she’d have had a much better life. And couldn’t the same be said of Andromeda too? Her _mother_ had insulted Amphitrite, and my father had ordered her death.

(I liked my stepmother. Unlike Hera, she didn’t hold my existence against me. But why was Andromeda responsible for her mother’s actions, but I wasn’t? She was good to me; that didn’t make her any more good.)

And yet, she was family, and she treated me like family. Maybe, in the last two-thousand years, she’d learned to be better. I couldn’t hold what happened back then against Amphitrite. Nor against my father.

( _But then, you can’t hold Kronos eating his children against him either. That was even longer ago.)_

I groaned loudly. If there was something I hated more than anything about Luke, it was how much he’d taught me to overthink things.

Annabeth, admittedly, hadn’t helped.

ΜαυβετηισισηοςΓρεεκςορκςΥουδον’ττ κνοςμε.Υουδον’τκνοςμυστορυ

Unsurprisingly, Luke was waiting at my doorstep. He was also soaking wet.

Celia was a good friend,

I hesitated, but only for a moment. The games lasted a week. There was no way I could get through them while avoiding Luke. And I couldn’t help him if I avoided him. I had an oath to keep—and a promise to Hermes too.

But even if I’d had neither, I would have still tried to help him. Luke was my friend, my family. That was all that mattered.

I plopped down on the step next to him, my back to the sea. He seemed almost startled, but smiled softly. “Hey Percy.”

“Hey.” A rather crappy way to begin this conversation, but it was the best I had.

Silence reigned for a moment, but when Luke ran a hand through his hair, I felt the water splash me. “Do you want to come in and dry off?”

Luke snorted a laugh, “No. Celia threatened to curse me if I stepped back inside, and she meant it.”

I didn’t doubt it. Celia had been the one who’d first saved me from the silence after Luke’s betrayal. Annabeth was just as attached as me. Nico and Bianca remembered him as the guy who’d first introduced them to the future. Celia was the one who’d looked at the whole situation and called Minotaur-crap. 

“That’s new, her staying here. I hear you’re the one they all have to thank. It’s really cool, though I can’t believe Chiron is allowing it.”

A bubble of pride simmered in my heart; it was probably my proudest accomplishment. _See_ I wanted to say. _We can make things better without trying to end the world._ I figured Luke wouldn’t be super receptive, though. Instead, I went with, “Actually, Mr. D is the one who called rank and let it be. He said all the gods love it. They’re not really that bad, you know. Not all the time.”

Luke didn’t disagree with me, not explicitly. I did hear him mutter, “Tell that to Pentheus.”

I had no idea who Pentheus was. Somehow, I doubted I wanted to.

Even without knowing, my mood soured. Rising to my feet, I asked, “Is this what it’s going to be? You trying to recruit me for a week? Because if it is, I’m going inside and letting Celia curse you.”

“No!” Luke’s response was so immediate, I was shocked. He clearly meant it though. I could see the panic in his eyes, the shame too. “No, Percy. I’m sorry—it’s a bad habit. Listen. I’m not here to recruit.”

I scoffed.

Luke had the generosity to cringe. “Alright, I’m not here to recruit _you_. I mean, it Percy. You know I’m right about the gods. I don’t need to convince you of anything. But even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t. It’s not fair of me to keep pushing you. I’m doing what I think is right. I like to think that you are too.”

I thought back to the summer, to Luke calling me selfish for my unwillingness to fight. Maybe this was just a new way to manipulate me. Or maybe, what I hoped in my heart was true, and he actually meant it. The problem was, Luke had lied to me before. I couldn’t possibly believe him now, however much I wanted to.

“So let’s make a deal. I promise for the whole time I’m here not to talk about Kronos, if you promise that we can just, just talk. Like we used to. I’ve missed you Percy. I mean it.”

I’d missed him too. It was a little stupid, because we’d only spent a few months together. But demigod months were longer, and the bond we’d formed was impossible to break. Quite literally, considering our mutual oaths.

Speaking of which, “You’re not swearing to Styx?”

Luke shivered melodramatically. It made me smile. “No. Not because I plan on backing out—I don’t—but it’s not good to have too many oaths. You don’t want to risk them coming into conflict, or boom, there goes Luke. But I promise, I’ll only bring up Kronos if you’re actively being endangered or used by the gods.”

Okay, that was … fair. I didn’t want Luke spontaneously combusting either. And it would be nice, just to talk. If I could trust him.

I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t really know if I _should._ But I wanted to. And I did know that I wanted Luke to trust me, to lean on _me_ so he didn’t lean on _Kronos._ I couldn’t accomplish that by avoiding him.

“You can talk about Kronos,” I finally decided. “Don’t recruit me. Don’t spend all day complaining about the gods. But you can talk about him. I don’t want us to be dancing around things, and I imagine it’ll be kind of hard to tell me about your last year without mentioning him.”

That made Luke smile, the rare, honest smile he reserved only for me and Annabeth. Then he grabbed my arm, clasping it in the old, Greco-Roman style, “Deal.”

With our agreement struck, silence fell over us. For a moment, I wasn’t certain how to begin. Where did you start to catch up to someone after a year? But Luke seemed relaxed, at peace in a way he so rarely was. In the end, that is what made it easy to just go for it. “So what have you been doing? Recruiting, obviously, but how does that explain the fancy parties?”

“Oh! That’s Triumvirate Holdings. It’s a major corporation, hands in all pockets, run by some older demigods. That’s been the coolest thing, Percy. You hear all the tragic stories, so I never realized just how many demigods made it to adulthood. But I’ve been talking to all of them, trying to get a lay of the land. There are some who are just trying to live as mortals. You remember Colonel O’Neill from Colorado? Well, it turns out that there are actually a lot of demigods working as engineers, and she got me in contact with this professor at MIT who...”

The stories rolled. I told Luke about the ridiculous things that had happened here at school. Luke told me about his travels, the people he was meeting, the things he’d seen. He didn’t hold back on that either—and it frightened me to know that people had already died for Kronos. But most of it was just fun—amazing people, ridiculous side quests and life. Just life, for both of us.

It wasn’t until Apollo and his sun chariot greeted us that Luke and I finally went our separate ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're not really supposed to understand the lines of Greek, but if you're curious, it translates to:
> 
> Τῇ Ἀρτέμῐδῐ τά ἐκεχειρία ὲστί ἱερᾰ́.”  
> The truce is sacred for Artemis. 
> 
> Except the way the Greek works just makes it a lot more powerful, because the relationship between the sacredness and Artemis is a lot stronger than in English? I don't really know how to explain it beyond that. Ancient languages are obnoxious, but they can also do some cool things English can't. 
> 
> Τηισισνοτηοςγρεεκςορκσβυτιτισφυντοπρετενδτηατιτις/ ΜαυβετηισισηοςΓρεεκςορκςΥουδον’ττ κνοςμε.Υουδον’τκνοςμυστορυ  
> This is not actually Greek. This is me being silly. Look up the phonetics of the Greek alphabet and you'll be able to figure it out


End file.
